ANNE LOW AND DOSIA SANFORD
A TWISTED RAG IN A SCALLOP SHELL
March 10 - May 4, 2024

This exhibition brings together two handwoven objects in an empty bedroom: a patterned parasol propped against the wall and a striped carpet unfurling across the width of the floor. Partly packaged and rolled, these objects gesture towards the stockroom and the realm of surplus, a state that belies the hand dyed and handwoven qualities of their making. This material encounter also represents a dialogue and a friendship between two weavers. Anne Low and Dosia Sanford met a decade ago as students of traditional handweaving in Marshfield, Vermont. There, they bonded over 18th-century looms and a shared curiosity for the slow construction of materials that make up our everyday lives.

In the mid-19th century, the industrialization of textile production rendered handweaving an obsolete trade. With Pick, Low quietly strikes out against economic practicality, bundling her labor into the kind of object no one keeps around anymore. At the same time, her handbuilt parasol is the perfect vessel for visually conveying the particular qualities of handwoven silk - we experience the material’s sensuous texture and color modulation through its undulating folds and fasteners.

Both Low and Sanford revisit preindustrial traditions with a keen awareness of the easy tendency to romanticize and sentimentalize the past. From a critical perspective, the mechanization of the loom also served to liberate handweaving from the rigidity of tradition. Accordingly, Sanford’s you are my everlovin’ loosely follows the structure of Venetian warp-faced carpets while taking irreverent liberties with its design. Her complex pattern of ladders, stripes and checks plays optically with the viewer and the demure associations we have with proper interiors. Historically, these kinds of rugs were often made with rag scraps and relegated to the private quarters of upper class homes rather than displayed in formal sitting and dining rooms. Stretched to the edges of the room, we are free to experience the carpet’s pattern uninterrupted.

The exhibition takes its title from a description of early domestic lamps. A twisted rag in a scallop shell describes the provisional act of making light from two disparate things. It also reflects the kind of self sufficiency that craft affords its makers and the communities they work in. Low and Sanford’s exhibition relates both formally and metaphorically to this simple object, as a spark of shared dialogue between their unique material explorations, derived from a collective history of making.

— Marie Catalano